


Hey There, Short Stuff.

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Plot, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Genetic Engineering, Giant/Tiny, Giantess - Freeform, Iron Dad, No Thanos, No Vore because Gross, Not Beta Read, Self-Indulgent, Size Difference, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Are you going to call the police?” She responded in a soft, thready voice. Strands of dirty blonde hair hung over her dark hazel eyes, which were wide with mistrust and fear.“No. I mean, unless you’ve secretly gone on a mass pyromaniac spree, or something.” Peter joked.It didn’t land: tears the size of softballs welled in the woman’s eyes, rolling down her cheek. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I did that.” She said. “I don’t know. I… I don’t know where I am.”Spider-Man's patrol ends abruptly when he finds a woman the size of a townhouse hiding inside of an old water tank, unable to remember her name or how she got there. Now it's up to him to figure out just what the hell is going on with her- and hopefully not get stepped on in the process.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Self Insert
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

Peter Parker’s official 24th circle around the sun was yesterday. Even with his better-than-average rate of healing, the hangover he woke up made his day headachey and a little less enthusiastic than normal. Which was fine: he’d practically had to sneak out of Stark tower this morning because his aging pseudo-dad was  _ insistent  _ that he take the day off to ‘sleep off the party’. But Peter wasn’t a relaxer, and it didn’t help that Mr. Jameson was a miser with sick days, so he wouldn’t even be able to get out from under his real job if he wanted to. Even so, he didn’t want to put any more stress on the obstinate Iron Man, so he spent most of today patrolling the more suburban and undeveloped edges of East New York, chiding teenager taggers and spooking off petty thieves. 

The late summer evening was warm, probably in the mid-eighties from what Peter could pick up from under the heavy mesh of his suit. He always liked nights like this: the sun had disappeared from the horizon and the warm lights of the city were lighting up the sky as crickets hummed below the low noise of city traffic and hubbub. At least in older, more abandoned parts of town, the urban wildlife was louder than the angry car horns. Peter relaxed a bit more on top of the old, smooth top of a derelict city water tank: it hadn’t been used in ages, sitting right between two old seaside warehouses that had probably been due for demolition since the eighties. In between the pieces of scrap metal and old, long-rusted cars, unkempt grass and weeds grew. It wasn’t the prettiest place, but the water tank was tall enough to see the city skyline, and even the stars that glittered over Jamaica Bay. 

There was a distant clatter, and the hushed laugh and murmur of teenager voices. Peter didn’t bother with more than a single cursory glance. Old ruins were a prime spot for young highschoolers looking to drink the two cans of beer they’d nicked from their parent’s garage and listen to loud, crass music without repercussion. It was practically a rite of passage. Peter watched three young men carefully wading through the overgrown weeds, talking to one another and shoving each other playfully. They headed straight into the slightly open door to the water tank he was sitting right on top of. Spider-man sighed, and pulled his mask down over his face. He’d give himself five minutes. Five more minutes to feel the warm summer breeze blow, to totally and utterly relax in a place with no threats, no leering criminals, and nothing to do.  _ Then  _ he’d hop on down there and ask those kids if they really thought it was smart to get wasted in a scrapyard that was practically a tetanus bomb waiting to go off. 

But he didn’t have a chance. The evening silence was shattered by loud gasps, then terrified, high-pitched screams as the three teens booked it like bats out of hell from the water tank, stumbling over themselves, drinks discarded and forgotten on the ground. 

Peter was willing to bet that it wasn’t something harmless like a rat that had scared them off. He’d seen teenagers chase off rabid, spitting opossums just because they wanted to share a beer. 

Spider-man wasted no time falling onto his hands and pads of his feet, scaling down the side of the tank like his namesake. He paused to press a masked ear to the metal. There was very muffled, yet very  _ strong _ , breathing: he cursed under his breath. His mistake was thinking he could even have a single night off to himself. With a graceful arc he flipped off the wall and landed silently in the grass, staring down the dark entrance to the building; with its rusted and worn exterior and in the low light, it looked almost intentionally sinister. After a few seconds of silence, there was the soft sound of something shifting inside. Whatever he couldn’t see, could clearly see him. 

Peter immediately readied for a fight, flicked on both the flashlights built into his suit wrists, and pointed their powerful beams straight into the darkness. He expected to see your run-of-the-middle New York atrocity: a giant mutated octopus, or maybe a sand monster. Possibly a swarm of evil rogue robots. So when his bright beams illuminated the incredibly  _ large  _ face of a woman who immediately flinched and huddled further back into the darkness, he was caught a little off guard. 

It took him a moment to process what he was seeing. There was a person in the water tower. A person who was sitting with her back to the wall, knees up under her chin, and head brushing the ceiling. An  _ enormously huge  _ person that was easily five times taller than himself. The longer Peter held the light on her, the more she tried to shrink in on herself, hiding underneath a dull green plastic construction tarp that she was wearing the same way someone might wear a towel when they’ve come out of the shower. She seemed  _ petrified _ : if he was expecting a fight, he clearly wasn’t going to get it with her. 

Two whole minutes of stunned silence passed before it even occurred to Spider-man to talk. 

“Uh. Hello.” He got out, doing his best to not sound like he was so far out of his element he was drowning. “Can I… help you? I mean, I don’t know you personally, but I don’t think a lot of people enjoy spending a lot of recreational time in pitch blackness.”

“Are you going to call the police?” She responded in a soft, thready voice. Strands of dirty blonde hair hung over her dark hazel eyes, which were wide with mistrust and fear.

She was shaking like a leaf. If Peter’s spidey-sense could send him direct verbal messages, it would be telling him right now that this was a victim, not an instigator. He turned his beams to the ceiling of the tank so they lit up the interior with a less interrogational light, and stepped into the doorway as non threateningly as possible. “No. I mean, unless you’ve secretly gone on a mass pyromaniac spree, or something.” He joked. 

It didn’t land: tears the size of softballs welled in the woman’s eyes, rolling down her cheek. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I did that.” She said. “I don’t know. I… I don’t know where I am.”

“Whoa, whoa, hey. Easy. Everything’s going to be okay.” Peter held up a reassuring hand. He was always so quick to promise that to people in trouble that he met, and oftentimes it was a promise he could make true. But he didn’t know about this time. He glanced back at the tiny door, and the gigantic woman before him. “Do you at least know how you got  _ in  _ here? You couldn’t have fit through the door like… like this, right?”

She shook her head even more furiously, scrubbing away her tears with the back of one hand. “I don’t know that  _ either _ . I woke up in here this- this morning, and I tried to find a way out but- and all there was in here was a tarp, so I just- and I’m so  _ scared,  _ I don’t even know why I’m so big-”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked; let’s just focus on getting you  _ out  _ of here and somewhere safe, okay?” Peter quickly stepped in before she could wind herself up further. 

Her eyes widened in worry. “I  _ can’t  _ leave, are you crazy? You saw what happened when people saw me. They’re gonna think I’m a monster and call the police! And  _ they’re  _ going to call the SWAT team, and  _ I’m  _ going to disappear into some government laboratory in the desert and never be seen again.”

Spider-Man had officially switched from ‘wary and ready to do his job’ to ‘borderline exhausted’. He rubbed his temple: she was right, in a way. He was going to have to leverage his own connections to make sure a gargantuan woman walking around the outskirts of Bergen beach didn’t spark mass panic and the cordial invitation of a fleet of helicopters with guns. And now, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, there was one person with enough influence and experience under his belt to get them both out of this pickle. 

“Listen.” He said calmly, taking a few more steps into the tank until he was only a few feet away from her. He had to arch his back and crane his neck upwards to maintain eye contact. “I know people that can make sure you won’t be hurt, or have the national guard called on you. Is it alright with you if I ask for their help? No laboratory science experiments, I promise.”  _ As long as I can keep her at arm’s length from Banner, that is _ , he thought privately to himself. 

She seemed to fearfully consider this for a while, brow furrowing as she surreptitiously tugged the tarp up a little higher around her chest, conscious of the fact that it really didn't cover her all that conservatively. “... What’s your name?” the woman asked him, bending a little downwards to gaze at him with full, wide-eyed attention. 

Peter was a little stunned at how under the spotlight he felt. She was massive, and frightened, and a little dirty from huddling in this shithole of a building- but under all that she was a sweet-looking woman. Beautiful, even, in a gentle sort of way. “You’ve never heard of me?” He said, putting a hand on his hip. “Your friendly neighborhood Spider-man, at your service. You might have heard about that time that I saved New York from annihilation? Or that  _ other  _ time I saved New York from annihilation?” 

She breathed a sigh of relief: it was gusty enough to feel like a breeze. “You’re a superhero. Like, an actual superhero. I guess that explains the fancy gear and the connections. And the skintight suit.”

“Who did you  _ think  _ I was?”

“I don’t know. Some wack-job with flashlights glued to his wrists? For every real good guy, there’s ten nuts who think they’re hotshot vigilantes. I… don’t know how I know that, but it sounds true.” She worried at her lower lip with her large teeth. “Spider-man, call your ‘contact’. I- I really don’t want to spend more time in the dark like this. And… it might be a stretch, but I’d like to wear something other than a tarp.”

“I’m, uh… sure we can figure something out.” Peter hazarded. He tapped the side of his suit’s head, a contact list coming up on his eye’s lens. With a single, reluctant selection, the line began to ring. 

It picked up almost immediately. “Hello, Peter. I’m afraid that Mr. Stark is not available to take your call right now.” A calm, collected female voice said. 

“Yeah, nice to hear from you too, Friday.” Peter replied dryly. “What’s so important that Stark can’t pick up the goddamn phone? It’s kind of urgent.” 

“Mr. Stark says that he, and I quote, ‘does not have time to answer calls from little bastards who don’t take his hangover advice’.”

“I’m a grown man, Friday, a grown man! Who does he think he is, my dad?” Peter said angrily, well aware that now more than ever, he sounded like a sullen teenager. “Can you  _ please  _ just patch me through? Trust me, I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t an emergency.”

“Patching you through.”

Peter didn’t have the chance to even say thank you before the voice of his oldest mentor and primary antagonist of his life was in his ear. He rolled his eyes, already picturing Tony standing in front of one of his floor-to-ceiling windows, sunglasses on, salt and pepper hair slicked and carefully parted. 

“Hey kid. How’s the vodka hangover? We probably didn’t make you drink enough last night if you’re out and about today.”

“Oh trust me, I had plenty, Stark. And  _ no _ , before you can bother me about it-  _ I’m  _ fine. Like an adult, I do my work even when I’m feeling a little out of it. 

“Well, as the primary father figure in your life, I think it’s my duty to-”

“Oh, cram it.” Peter cut in. Tony always did know exactly how to poke the bear. “Now if you’re done bothering me because you don’t like it when people disobey you, I need your help. Not for myself, for someone else; and I need it fast.”

“Is that all I am to you, Petey?” Stark said in mock hurt. “A big bag of money to throw at your problems? I’m hurt, honestly.”

“There’s a gigantic woman stuck inside a water tank, with no idea who she is or how she got here.” There was an inhale of breath on the other end of the line. “I’m going to stop you before you make a fat joke, Stark. I’m not kidding.” Peter turned to look back up at the woman, who was still peering down at him. “She’s at  _ least  _ two stories tall. I feel like a ken doll next to her. I need you to help me get the top of the tank off and get her somewhere  _ safe  _ without causing a mass panic.”

Stark didn’t respond with a joke this time. “Hmm. I’ll take the suit over. I own a private airstrip inside Fort Tilden… the hangar there is about two stories high. Where are you?”

“We’re right next to Bergen Beach.”

“Perfect. I’ll bring one of Stark Industry’s ships through the Jamaica Bay inlet nearby.”

“Tony, you can’t do that. That’s a wildlife protection zone-”

“Who’s going to stop me, kid? A park ranger? I’m Iron Man.” There was a brief pause as he leaned away from the phone and told Friday to get transport ready. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. You better not be pulling my leg about this, Peter. If you just secretly want some good old quality time with the coolest dad in the world, all you have to do is ask: you don’t have to make up stories.”

Peter hung up before Tony could finish his sentence, and sighed. He looked up at the woman in front of him. “Help is coming in a few minutes. Don’t worry- no big commotion involved.” He paused. “You really don’t know how you got here?”

“If I did, I would have told you, I swear. I don’t even remember my own name.” The concept seemed to discourage her, and she looked downtrodden. 

He didn’t know why, but he really didn’t like it when she was upset. Hr wanted to distract her, bring her back into the present. When Peter shot a web onto the apex of the ceiling and climbed up it, hanging upside-down in front of her face, she let out a startled yip and whacked the back of her skull against the wall. It echoed and she winced in pain, but that seemed secondary to the display before her.

“You- you’re  _ part spider _ ?!”

“The whole arachnid theme isn’t just a gimmick.” Peter replied with a hidden grin. He settled more comfortably onto the single strand of webbing, knees bent outwards. “And I think I have a solution to your amnesia- well, at least the name part.”

“And what would that be?”

“Going down a list of names by alphabetical order.” The woman groaned and pinched her brow at his answer, which only prompted him to smile wider under his mask. “Abby. No? How about Ada. Amanda. Addison?”

“I think I’d prefer a spider that  _ bites _ over a spider that talks.” The woman griped. Even so, she wore the small beginnings of a smile, which was brilliant progress from her previous state of abject fear. Peter decided he liked it when she smiled. 

* * *

They hadn’t even gotten through all the names that started with A when the Peter’s communication hub pinged. He hurried outside into the night just as Tony touched down. When the billionaire first laid eyes on the anomaly of a woman he had been borderline intolerable, cracking jokes and gesturing to her like some strange artifact that a curious archaeologist had discovered. Eventually he and Peter got to action: Tony lasered a circle around the base of the tank’s roof, and Peter set a few very tactically placed lines of webbing and they pulled it off together. The resulting ear-ringing clatter of metal on earth was heard for miles: they only had so long before good Samaritans with the best intentions began phoning the police. 

Thank god the city was never completely dark, even on the edges of the industrial districts. The woman had stood up from the water tank like a baby deer, carefully climbing up over the side while maintaining an iron grip on her body covering. Tony and Peter led her through a short maze of old buildings and empty, disused shipping docks until they came to the boat waiting right next to the dock in the best shape. 

“When you said you’d bring a ship, you really meant you’d bring a ship.” Peter said faintly. In water barely deep enough to accommodate it was a small freight ship. Most of the deck was empty: usually it would be filled with large metal shipping containers, but now there was enough space without them for one two-story-tall individual to comfortably sit cross-legged. Peter joined Stark up in the helm cabin, watching him grab the wheel and then step out of his suit like a cicada shedding its exoskeleton. 

“Friday, be a dear and take us to my getaway airstrip.” He said, walking towards the windows. The ship powered on as the AI took control through the suit, and soon they were speeding out of the harbor and into open water, turning onto their charted course. “You know, we could just call Fury in.” Stark commented without turning away from the window. His gaze was fixed on the woman on the deck, who had her hands hovering over her face to shield it from the cold ocean spray. “I didn’t believe you at first when you called me but… look at her. I’ve never seen anything like it. But Fury? He’s probably seen worse, I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s got a  _ team  _ for this sort of thing. A place. An underground, secure, safe area that  _ isn’t  _ my private property.”

Peter scoffed incredulously. “You want to hand her over to Fury? Nobody deserves that. He’ the best we’ve got in terms of defenses, but I just  _ know  _ he’d turn her straight over to the CIA and let them poke at her for the rest of her life. Look at her, she’s just…” He watched the woman spit hair out of her mouth that the wind had blown in, gagging, “...a person. Who happens to be as big as a house. Besides, the Avengers have handled worse things before.”

“Oh, no no no.” Tony laughed out, putting a finger out to stop the younger man’s thoughts in their tracks. “This?” He gestured to the woman and then back at them, “this is  _ not  _ an ‘Avengers’ thing. This is a you and me thing, where I do something nice for you out of the goodness of my heart, and because of that nice favor I don’t get dragged into any bigger problems.”

“Tony.” Peter said warningly, almost pleadingly. “Tony, come one. I can’t handle this on my own, I got bad guys to catch and a city to keep safe.”

“And I’m not saying you have to!” Tony assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll post a security detail, make sure she doesn’t leave the premises.” When he saw Peter open his mouth to argue, he quickly started talking again. “ _ And  _ I’ll make sure she has an actual place to sleep, food, water, yada yada. That’s just money; no skin off my back. Though I don’t know where in the hell we’re going to find a shirt big enough for Lady Liberty out there. Actually, hmm. I know a designer in Taiwan, maybe I could commission her…”

When Tony fell into his planning brain, muttering to himself and pulling out his phone, it was Peter’s cue to leave. He took the opportunity to raid the empty mess hall area, getting a bottle of water from a vending machine and drinking it while laying face-up on one of the dining tables and trying to ignore the swaying of the ship. There was one thing that Stark had been right about, at least: this vodka headache was  _ killing  _ him.

* * *

It was a pleasant surprise to see Tony’s ‘airstrip’ was less of a single runway and more a small fortified compound. It was a walled-off area by the beach, save for the wall-less entrance and exit to the runway. Two hangars about two and a half stories tall sat on either side of the tarmac. Surrounding the walls, and branching off to either side to join back up with the public park behind them, were groves of thin, tall trees that obscured the view of everything but the ocean. It was almost  _ nice _ ; well, it would have been nice if there was an actual beach, since they were on the edge of the ocean. But the beach had been replaced with packed earth and rocks, allowing for more tarmac to form another stretch of artificial runway. 

The woman watched with plugged ears as one of the hangars was cleared with a single phone call from Tony’s end: three planes flew overhead in quick succession. Out here on the pseudo-island, the night was much darker: the only light that lit up the compound were the massive floodlights from the empty hangar, and the small red nodes that lined the runway. 

Stark gave a sharp whistle from the ground, prompting the woman to look downwards. He gestured for her to come closer. All of them stood before the massive hangar; but ever the king of his own world, Stark demanded the woman stoop to his level instead of rising to hers. She carefully got on her knees, craning her neck down to look at the man. She didn’t know why, since he was so small- but she couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the middle-aged man with his expensive suit and italian shoes. He seemed like a guy who constantly demanded respect from others, and was begrudgingly given it because he actually deserved it. 

“Shoot straight with me, kid.” He cut right to the chase, his sunglasses shining in the fluorescent light: it was baffling that he still wore them at night, but somehow entirely expected. “Spider-man says you don’t remember a single thing, not even your own name. You wanna look me in the eye and tell me you’re  _ absolutely  _ sure about that?”

The woman swallowed hard, her fingers weaving together in her lap. “I’m sure. I’m really, really sure.” She glanced over to Spider-man, who was talking a ways away with another man in a suit; presumably one of Tony’s hired helpers. “That Spider-man… he’s a really nice guy. And I mean that in the good, actually nice person way. I… honestly, I expected to die of dehydration before anyone found me: the metal was too tough for me to get through by myself. Or if I didn’t die, I expected to get black-bagged and taken to some…  _ terrifying  _ underground facility, all because of something I don’t even  _ understand _ .” She swallowed again, but this time it was to hold back the burn of frustrated, frightened tears that threatened to spill out of her eyes. “I never expected someone to just help me like he did. It was really, genuinely sweet. I don’t know how to thank him.”

Tony nodded in understanding, well aware that Peter’s heightened senses let him hear everything the woman had just said. “Yeah. He’s a good kid, always thinking about others before he thinks about himself. Real hero material.” He sighed, shifting his weight to his other foot before subtly crooking his fingers, calling his suit to him. He looked back up at the giant before him. “So listen. It won’t be as big as a real room, but there’s enough space to stand and walk around inside the hangar. You should be safe there until we can figure out a more permanent solution. And, while we’re on the subject, if someone working here tells you to do something, you  _ do  _ it, capiche? Stay inside as much as you can. The people who come down to the beach near here are a little drone-happy, and the last thing I need right now are candid camera pictures of you setting my inbox on fire.”

With a serious expression the woman nodded rapidly. “Oh, yeah, of course. Anything you say, Mr. Stark. I owe so much to you.”

With a big grin Tony threw his head back and laughed. “You know, you sound just like Spider-man did when I first took him under my wing.” Just then his suit landed next to him, splitting open for his entrance. He put two fingers in his mouth once more and whistled in Peter’s direction. “If you want a ride back to your apartment you’d better get ready to boogie, bug boy.” He said loudly before climbing in.

He gave a short goodbye salute to the giant, gesturing for her to go inside the hangar. She entered unsurely, and looked around with equal parts dismay and relief. There was space to move about in, but not a ton. And with its cold concrete flooring and uninsulated iron walls, it wasn’t exactly the friendliest place. But it would keep her safe and out of the elements which was really all she could ask for at the moment. A stranger in formalwear and glasses was working at the electrical light box on one of the walls, and she waved nervously at them. They did not wave back. 

The large woman was just settling herself down on the floor, readjusting her tarp (which, being plastic, was really uncomfortable and tended to bite into her skin) when Spider-man walked through the towering hangar door. He strode up to the giant and then slowed to a halt, seeming to lose steam and purpose on the way over. 

“So. You’re settled in.” He said awkwardly. 

“As much as I can be.” She replied, trying not to sound uncomfortable. “A clean concrete floor is a lot better than a dirty one in a junkyard. This place will be easier to get some sleep in, anyway; I’m exhausted.”

“Mm, same here.” Spider-man agreed. He stretched his arms, pulling his elbows behind his head and yawning. “I had a lighter workload today than usual, but this kind of job always takes it out of you.”

“What exactly  _ do  _ you do all day, anyway? Besides hanging out in junkyards, obviously.” 

“Hey, c’mon. I was on break. Normally I’m pretty much full time on patrol around the city, just doing what I can do to help others, you know? Like, uh,” He snapped his fingers, trying to come up with examples. “Today I stopped a hijacker who stole a two-decker tour bus full of people. There was also an elderly man who was having trouble unloading his store’s groceries at his loading dock, so I did it for him. You know: hero stuff.”

“That’s… pretty awesome, actually.” She admitted with a smile. She tucked a lock of long hair back behind her ear, settling against the wall. “So you’re on the city’s payroll. What are you, like, a police officer?”

Peter laughed at the notion. Though he couldn’t lie, it stung a little. “No, no. That would be  _ condoning  _ the stuff that I do. According to the law, I’m technically a vigilante. They can’t encourage that sort of stuff. So…” he sighed, licking his chapped lips beneath his mask, “I work nine to five for money, then five to five the next day to keep my neighborhood safe.”

“So what does the amazing spider-man work on for money when he’s not hanging from ceilings?”

Peter paused with his mouth half-open. Talking about his photography work while on duty… wasn’t a good idea. It was just another detail of his private life, another sliver of information that could escape through his fingers like smoke. Smoke that could directly lead to someone uncovering who he was, and having his life unravel in the aftermath. “Sorry, that’s confidential.” He brushed off jokingly. “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

The woman gave a close-lipped humming laugh, nodding. “I get it. Superheroes probably need to lead pretty private lives, huh? Guess I forgot about that fact that some people actually have information they can hide.” The conversation lulled for a second before she spoke again. “I had an idea, on the way over. You know how when someone is admitted to a hospital with no ID, she’s called a Jane Doe? I know it’s kind of a dark joke, but I think you could call me Jane. For now. At least until I remember.”

“I mean, it  _ is  _ a little on the macabre side…” Peter teased. They both laughed softly. “But I like it, actually. Jane. It’s a good name.”

“I think so too.”

The air did not get awkward so much as it got a very particular type of quiet. A sort of quiet where Peter and Jane just sort of looked at each other, fiddling with their hands and flickering their eye contact. 

“Well, I’m gonna go.” Peter finally said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the runway. “I’m getting a first-class flight back to Queens.” He gave a graceless wave and made to leave the hangar.

“Wait!” Jane sat up and leaned forward, putting her weight on a hand in front of her. Suddenly she found herself much closer to the tiny Spider-man than before, and was struck by the realization that daily acts of heroism gave him a very toned body. “I never really thanked you properly.”

“Aww, pshh.” Peter said, having already overheard the conversation between Jane and Stark. “You don’t need to, it’s fine.”

“Thank you.” She said seriously before he could leave. Her eyes, each nearly as big as his head, felt like they were staring into his very soul. “There’d probably be mass panic and a lot of tanks in Bergen Beach right now if you hadn’t stepped in. I bet most people wouldn’t have given me a chance, powers or not. You’re a good man, Spider-man.”

Her completely honest words hit Peter in the chest like a crossbow bolt, and he stared up at her large face with a lump in his throat. “Thanks.” He said quietly. “I think I needed to hear that.”

Ever so slowly, Jane extended her hand, her pointer finger out towards the tiny spider on the floor before her. He bridged the gap, gently placing a gloved hand on her finger. The span of his hand wrapped around the tip, like someone holding a football. The singular point of contact felt like a tiny electrical current, a small warm spot on her body.

“If you’re not out of that hangar in ten seconds I’m calling your aunt and telling her you died in a shootout!” Came a loud, hardened voice from the darkness outside. 

Peter snatched his hand away from Jane’s like he’d been electrocuted, and gave her a long, unreadable look before running out the door. 

“That’s extortion under duress, you know.” Jane heard Spider-man say in the distance over the sound of booting-up rockets. 

“Yeah, yeah. Get ready to fly, kid.”

“Can I ride you like a hoverboard?” 

“The answer’s always going to be no.”

“Well, I’m always going to ask.”

There was a burst of light as Stark took off, taking Spider-man with him. Jane could only just see the faint reddish-yellow glow of the suit’s booster rockets when one of the nameless security guards started rolling down the hangar’s massive garage door, flicking the industrial lights off and leaving the room illuminated only by shafts of moonlight coming in through the many tiny windows. 

Jane ran her thumb over her finger, right on the point of contact where Spider-man had, for all intents and purposes, held her hand. She bit at the inside of her cheek, feeling a very complex cocktail of emotions in her chest but also feeling too tired to process them. “See you around, short stuff.” She murmured to herself, and settled in for some rest that was long overdue. 


	2. Chapter 2

The airstrip- Jane liked to think of it as her courtyard- was actually quite pleasant and refreshing. Despite the tall walls she could still see the sprawling trees, and the air was always crisp and salty. In the distance, the ocean was in a constant state of dull, soothing roaring. With a sigh, Jane stretched, shooting her hands up to the sky before bending down and touching her toes. So far, the clothes she had been given had been holding up incredibly well. When a loud foreign designer invited himself into the hangar bay a few days ago, she almost drop-kicked him out of sheer surprise. She was glad she had not; not only would it probably have killed him, she wouldn’t have been given the large blouse and simplistic shorts she was wearing today. The belt of the shorts was actually industrial-grade sailing rope: Jane didn’t know if that made her situation more funny, or depressing. 

“Ten more minutes of yard time.” The agent standing next to the entrance of the hangar said impassively, not even looking in her direction. 

“What is this, a prison?” Jane muttered, shooting him a glare. It really sort of was, in the end: she wasn’t allowed to leave. She learned that the hard way when she started heading towards the rocky private beach and was stopped by a small wall of guards with large elephant tranquilizer guns. Everything she did was controlled. Even her time outside was limited to thirty minutes, and the rest of the day she had to spend cooped up in the hangar, pacing the same short steps back and forth. 

She had still been scared of the outside world for the first few days. But now it had been a week and a half, and that fear had shifted into frustration and boredom. 

Another agent joined the first, calling for Jane’s attention. The small agent held up a cell phone the size of Jane’s pinky nail. “You’ve got a phone call.” 

Jane blinked a few times, caught off guard. “From… who?” There really weren’t a lot of candidates in that department.

“It’s the boss. On speakerphone.” The agent hesitantly placed the small device in the palm of Jane’s hand as she lowered it, before lifting it up and cradling it near her ear. 

“Hello?”

“Congratulations, kid. You made the front page! You’re a star.” Stark’s voice was dry and sarcastic, even muffled over the phone’s tiny speaker. 

“I… Mr. Stark, I don’t understand…?”

“Normally I’m pretty good at keeping the general public away from my private property, but I’ve got a lot of balls in the air right now and contrary to popular myth I can't be in several places at once. Apparently, some asshole was jet skiing out in front of the airstrip and managed to  _ snap some photos  _ of a very menacing looking monster wandering around on Stark Industries land.” 

There was a pause and a ding as a picture popped up on the screen. Jane squinted, bringing her hand closer to her eye. She could just make out a blurry photo of herself, standing in the eerie twilight light, back arched and arms held out from her sides.  _ She  _ knew the picture was from last night, when she had cajoled and buttered an agent up enough to get him to play a guided yoga audio that could follow. But to people who had never seen her before… the photo looked like a hulking monster, wandering around the airport, barely contained by the walls around her. 

“That’s me.” Jane said faintly. “That’s…  _ I  _ look like that to everybody else.” 

“You sure do. And now every paper in the state is spinning a story about  _ my  _ company ‘going too far’ with our biochemical research and dabbling in genetic modification. Do you know what this is? This is a PR nightmare. It’s going to take dozens of press conferences to make this go away.”

By now Jane was pale and sitting in the doorway to the hangar, looking sick with guilt. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark. I just wanted to stretch my legs a little bit. You’ve done so much for me, and I completely-”

Stark muttered something along the lines of  _ jesus fucking christ  _ on the other end. “I appreciate the groveling, I do. But this was unavoidable, okay? I mean, realistically, I was  _ hoping  _ to avoid it for a few more weeks until I found somewhere to put you-” he said it like he was talking about some out-of-control rescue pitbull, not a person. “-but we don’t always get what we want. For now just stay inside. And no more yoga, okay? I’m surrounded by enough new-age bullshit as it is.” Friday’s distant smooth voice echoed behind him, but it was too faint to understand what was being said. “I’m gonna go, I’ve got a visitor. Stay. Inside.”

* * *

The billionaire had only just waved away his holographic call screen when the large glass doors to his office slid open, and a bedraggled looking, poorly-shaved Peter Parker wearing scuffed sneakers and an old jean jacket hurried in. 

“Petey pie, you finally came to visit your old man.” Tony said, taking his feet off his desk and rising to pour himself a scotch, offering one to the younger man. 

Peter waved it away with an angrily furrowed brow. “Yeah, about that. See, I was just at the Daily Bugle- y’know, my  _ job _ , that has  _ nothing to do with Spider-man? _ \- when I got pulled into a priority writing project based around a very  _ interesting  _ photograph taken last night. Apparently, ‘Stark Industries is experimenting with human genetic mutation’. You wanna tell me what the hell is going on over there?”

“There was an informational leak, Peter. These things happen sometimes.”

“You were supposed to protect Jane!” He bit back, his voice hard and edged. 

Stark turned around abruptly, gesturing at him with his glass. “Oh yeah, kid, this is all my fault. I’m the one who brought a monster to my doorstep. I didn’t graciously offer my services and expect nothing in return or anything. Shame on me! Bad Tony, bad.” The sarcasm that dripped from his whole demeanor was practically flooding the room. “And before you can say a damn thing in your defense,  _ yes _ , you made the right decision calling me. But now  _ my  _ private life is all tied up in this too; because suddenly the eight million people of New York think this is my fault.”

Peter looked taken aback, but squared his jaw and crossed his arms nonetheless. “You know there’s an answer that every news outlet would accept. An answer that everyone would be willing to cheer on like their favorite baseball team.”

“For the last time, I am not putting her under the official ward of the Avengers!”

“The public would love it. I can see the headline now: ‘Mighty Avengers Rescue Victim of Genetic Experimentation, Safeguard her from Harm’.”

“Victim of genetic experimentation, my ass. You just want to be able to spend Avengers resources on her.”

“And so what if I do?”

“God, kid!” Tony slammed down his glass. Scotch sloshed onto the polished metal table. “What is  _ with  _ you and this woman? Can’t you just let it go and let me turn her over to the people who actually know what they’re doing?”

“Absolutely not!”

“ _ Why? _ ”

“I don’t know!” Peter shouted, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. The room got quiet; he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to collect himself. “I don’t know. But I don’t- can’t, throw her to the wolves like that. With real threats to the city? Yeah, it’s fine, I have no problem calling Fury in. But she’s just a scared woman… and I think if we actually _try to help_ instead of shipping her away, we can undo whatever happened to her.” He looked up at Tony with his big, shining brown eyes. The eyes he knew from experience made the belligerent billionaire shift from angry boss to soft-hearted father. 

“Kid.” Tony said softly after a moment, slumping and shaking his smiling head. “You always know how to go straight for the gut punch, huh?” 

“Not a kid.” Peter reminded him with a lopsided grin. “And I learned from the best.”

Tony made shooing motions towards the door. “Alright, alright. Go. Scram. I’ll set up a press conference in my lobby ASAP. In the meantime,  _ you  _ get back to whatever it is part-time photographers do.”

“Struggle to pay rent?”

“That’s the one.” He hummed in the back of his throat, mulling something over. “I bet there’s already a bunch of slimy, underhanded journalists- no offense, Petey- at the airstrip’s security gate. I’ll give Nat a call, see if she can hop over and look tough for a few hours.”

“She’s in Moscow right now, remember?”

“Oh yeah. Wanda and Vision, then.”

“Off on a diplomatic mission in Wakanda.”

“Shit. What about the big man? Cap’s always got time to stand in front of cameras and flutter his eyelashes. Maybe make a few speeches about freedom.”

“Nope. And Thor’s back on Asgard.” Peter put his hands in his jacket pockets, looking expectantly up at Tony.

“... You’re waiting for me to ask you to go over there, aren’t you.”

“Yep.”

He hadn’t been wearing them before, but Tony pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his suit pocket and put them on. He always liked to think that sunglasses were a bit like his suit’s head; they made him unreadable and at least fifty percent cooler. They weren’t bulletproof but hey, win some, lose some. “Well then get going. And no running your mouth to the press!” He had to shout the last part: Peter was already out the door and down the hall, fumbling with the secret pocket in his messenger bag and yanking out a jumbled mess of a red and blue suit while also rapidly talking on his cell, pleading with his boss for the day off. Less than a minute later Tony watched a lithe blur swinging from building to building below him, heading in the direction of the coast. 

He shook his head and snorted. “Kids.”

* * *

Tony had been right. There was already a small crowd in from of the large security checkpoint and electric gate at the entrance to the airstrip. More news vans were already pulling up, and impatient well-dressed men and women were trying to wring a statement out of the impassive security checkpoint guards. 

It gave them all a good shock when Spider-man launched himself from his perch in the nearby scraggly canopy and landed directly on top of the checkpoint guard’s booth, before dropping down behind the lowered security barrier. He crossed his arms and did his best ‘broad-shouldered’ superhero stance for the myriad of cameras that began to rapidly flash. Immediately a chorus of overlapping voices broke out, microphones emerging from the crowd like blooming flowers. 

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you all to disperse. You’re all technically on private property.” Peter said cordially, hands held up apologetically. 

“Spider-man, what is Tony Stark hiding?” One voice said aloud. “Is it true that this compound has an illegal human experiment housed in it?” Another cried out. 

Peter’s skin prickled. “I can’t say much, but I want to put to rest the rumor that Stark Industries is running some sort of nefarious genetic experiment. Stark has nothing to do with this.” He paused, watching the lenses around him flare, red lights surrounding him as he was broadcasted to the world. “This is strictly an Avengers issue. We’ve got it under control.” As expected with that statement, the crowd exploded into questions again. 

It took the better part of an hour of cajoling, ushering, and coercion to get the mob to leave. Once one of them received news that Stark was making an official statement on the issue in his tower lobby, most of them packed up and skittered off like a pack of wild rats. The final stragglers were eventually driven away as more Stark Industry worker ants began to show up and form a stronger perimeter around the land. The combination of a superhuman and private security was eventually enough to dissuade other news seekers, who quickly hung a u-turn at the sight of what waited for them at the end of the road. 

“She’s been asking about you, you know.” The entrance security guard eventually said to him. He was a portly man with a round belly, dressed in a neon orange security jacket. 

“Who? Jane?”

“Yeah. Wanted to know all about you.” He smiled. “I showed her videos of you from back in the day, when you tangled with the green goblin. They’re all up on Youtube. Cool stuff.”

“Oh.” It never really occurred to him that Jane had enough remaining interest in him that she would go poking around, looking for more information. Peter paused, awkwardly kicking at the loose gravel on the road. “And, uh… what did she say? About me?”

“She said it sounded like you’ve got a good heart.” The guard turned and looked at the electric door, its metal glittering in the afternoon sun. “You can go visit her, if you want. I’m sure she’s still pacing around in that hangar. I’ll open the security gate for you.”

“Not necessary. Thanks though!” Peter said over his shoulder, webbing the top of the wall and slingshotting himself over. He somersaulted to a halt on the sparse grass, waving to a perimeter guard who lowered her tranquilizer gun with a sigh of relief. Walking across the broad expanse of the runway was… anticlimactic. There was nothing the gracefully arc off of, no tall structure to suavely swing from: he was just a man in a stretchy suit, wandering across the concrete. 

“So… am I allowed in, or…?” Peter asked the woman standing in front of the towering hangar. She was placed right by the opener keypad, but she didn’t move to unlock it. 

“Door’s busted. Can’t open it from here.” She said. 

“Is she trapped in there?” Peter replied, voice a little louder with alarm. 

There was a distant clatter from inside the hangar, and a silent pause. “Spider-man? Is that you out there?” Jane’s unmistakable voice radiated from the door: it was muffled, but it was hers. 

“Yeah. Do you want me to get this door-” Peter didn’t finish the sentence before the door flung upwards at much faster speeds than usual. 

Standing behind it, holding it up against the ceiling with one hand, was Jane with a wide smile on her face. “Hey. Come on in.”

“They said it was broken.” Peter gestured upwards at the massive door as he crossed under it. 

Jane flushed. “It… is. I got too excited one day and tried to open it myself, and snapped the motor bands. Now I’m the only one who can lift it up.”

Peter squinted; the motors that pulled the door upwards  _ were  _ looking a little bent out of shape. “I’m pretty good with electronics and making stuff work- mainly so I don’t have to buy new stuff. Mind if I take a look?”

“Oh that would be great!”

Peter prepared to double-flick a web up into the ceiling’s supportive struts and shimmy up it, but Jane was putting both her hands down next to him, offering them as a sort of platform. He froze. 

Now it was Jane’s turn to freeze up. “I’m sorry. This might be weird. Is this weird?”

“No, no. I’ve just never been on a human elevator before.” Peter did his best to sound confident as he stepped onto the center of her palms. They were warm and soft underneath his feet, and he was suddenly very aware that if she closed her hands around him, his legs would be crushed.

Jane sensed his unease from the hard line of his shoulders and the odd, ready-to-jump-ship bend of his knees. She bit back a smile. “I’ll be really careful. I swear.” She got up off her knees as slowly and evenly as she could, but Spider-man still grabbed hold of her thumb for stability. “Going up.” Thankfully heights had never really been an issue for Peter.

Now that he was actually  _ up  _ next to the motors, Peter couldn’t focus, though he did his best to tap his chin and make thoughtful noises. He could see the individual whorls on the tips of each of Jane’s fingers, and feel the heat emanating from the blood circulating under her skin. The drastic size difference hit him somewhere odd, right in the dead center of his animalistic spidey-senses; it made the hair on his body stand on end. Shaking himself out of his weird, indescribable state, he fiddled with the motor bands a bit. Not only had Jane yanking the door up completely snapped them off their tracks, it had literally bent the metal machinery around it, warping it into something unusable. 

Peter turned around, hands on his hips, and shook his head like a doctor giving a family bad news. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s dead in the water.”

With a sigh, Jane hung her head in defeat, cascades of dark gold hair spilling over her face. “Mr. Stark’s going to kill me.”

“Over a motor? No. Over everything else? Quite possibly.”

The giant sank down into a cross-legged seat, hands still cupped and holding Spider-man. But instead of hopping out like she expected him too, he also settled into a cross-legged pose and put his chin in his hand, looking quizzically up at her. “You could probably punt Stark across a football field with one kick." He said. "Why are you so afraid of him?”

“I’m not afraid.” Jane clarified, bringing her hands and the spider inside them level with her face. “It’s just that Stark’s done a lot for me in the past few days, and I seem to be doing the  _ opposite  _ of repaying him.”

“Hey, hey, you don’t need to repay anybody.” Peter pointed out matter-of-factly. “Everybody deserves to be helped with their problems, no matter how small. Or big, in this case. It’s not a loan situation. And Stark knows a lot of really smart people: I’m sure somebody will know how to knock your more major memories loose.”

“I really appreciate you saying that. Thanks, short stuff.” Jane’s warm expression quickly puckered with alarm when she realized she had let her nickname for the spider slip.  _ We barely know each other, you absolute idiot _ . She chastised herself, wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  _ There is not a damn chance we are on a nickname basis. We’re not even on a name basis!  _

Peter had been called a lot of things in his life; kid, criminal, idiot. But he had never been called  _ short  _ before. He let out a barking laugh before he could stop himself. “Who are you callin’ short?” He said, raising an eyebrow and hoisting himself up to full height. “I’m five foot eleven. That’s a respectable height!” 

Jane was tempted to put her hands up in a gesture of concession, but that would mean dropping the man currently pulling power poses and stretching his head upwards to look taller. She settled for a nod, relieved that he’d taken the name so well. “My bad, my bad. You’re a very strong man. Very big and tall.”

Peter flopped back down on Jane’s palms and rested on his elbows, wearing a grin so big he was sure it was wrinkling the fabric under his eyes. “Well now you’re just being rude. You’re gonna have to give me a few minutes to come up with some names for you that don’t immediately make me look like an asshole for saying them.”

The giggle that Jane gave in response was soft and musical. The sound of warm indulgence. When the conversation lulled, Jane turned her head away from Spider-man, sweeping eyelashes lowered over her eyes in slight bashfulness. “I really enjoy this.” She looked back at him, lips slightly parted in a smile. “Spending time with you, face to face. Like a real person. I don’t get to do a lot of that.”

“Just because you’re tall doesn’t mean you can’t  _ talk  _ to people, you know.”

“But it’s different for you and me, short stuff.” She brought her hands even closer to her eye level. “Trying to talk to people on the ground, trying to hold a conversation… it’s like trying to watch TV from the other side of a big room. It doesn’t feel the same as actually being there. You’re… you don’t get to be part of anything. You’re the outsider.”

It made sense to Peter. And he was much more familiar with the feeling of being an outsider than others were. “If anyone gets that, it’s me.” He replied. “When you’re a hero, you’re not part of the crowd anymore. Everyone looks at you like you’re some alien that’s completely separate from society; they treat you differently than they would treat any other person on the street. Ask more of you. To them, you’re not a person, you’re a concept. All of your moves are politicized, and there’s not a single inch of margin for error.” He hadn’t meant to paint such a mournful, lonely picture of his daily life. But it was the truth. 

Jane swallowed her immediate first reaction to say she was sorry about how terrible it was. She figured he didn’t need to hear that from her. “Well,” She eventually said, “At least we can be outsiders together.”

“Yeah. I like that.” Spider-man said. “High five.” He splayed open a hand and smacked the palm of the massive one he was sitting on, causing Jane to burst into laughter at the ridiculous display. Her giggles shook his whole body, and also shook something loose inside his chest that had been winched up tight since his and MJ’s messy separation three years ago. “So,” Peter cleared his throat, bringing himself back to the present. “What do people do for fun around here?”

It was a question that Jane really had to wrack her brain for. Her life couldn’t really be described as fun in any variant: more like it was filled with ways to kill time. “Sometimes I can convince one of the security guards to play a song or two through the loudspeaker system.” She wrinkled her nose. “But it’s always the guard’s choice, and I’m sick to death of listening to Bohemian Rhapsody. It  _ was  _ good the first few times, though.”

Peter shimmied his phone from his narrow waistband pocket and wiggled it between his fingers. “Lucky for you, I consider myself a guy with incredible taste in music.” When Jane raised her eyebrows, he doubled down. “I’m serious! I listen to music most of the day. Commuting by webslinging gets a little predictable after a while. I know this guy downtown who owns a vinyl record shop. Not the hipster kind, the actual kind with boxes of old records that you have to hunt through to find ones that aren’t warped with time, or with polyvinyl scratching, though of course with the right tool’s  _ that’s  _ easy to fix-”

“You’re kind of a nerd, aren’t you?” Jane interrupted. Peter must have pulled some sort of wide-eyed expression visible through his mask, because she tilted her head back and laughed. “Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to see your reaction. I think it’s nice that you’re into music: it doesn't sound like you have time for a lot of other hobbies. Now, put some tunes on, spider boy. I wanna hear what you think is so great.”

* * *

Turns out, Spider-man was a bit of an indiehead. His phone was full of list after list of Fiona Apple, Vampire Weekend, and the ever predictably good Gorillaz: songs that got under your skin in a quiet, vibey sort of way. They made you want to dance slowly, thoughtfully, just for the sake of moving your body. 

Jane danced for a bit. Well, it was more like a swaying back and forth to the beat. But even that had Spider-man clinging on for dear life to her fingers, so they both decided it was for the best to just sit and appreciate the music. They chatted together for what felt like hours, murmuring over the music about things they liked and disliked about certain songs or artists. 

The last song on the top tracks playlist ended with a hard guitar flourish over the plucking base. Spiderman, now fully leaning back across Jane’s fingers with his feet dangling out over her wrists, finished his lazy air guitar with a sweeping motion and a half-assed bow.

“Mm. I would clap in approval for you, but… I don’t think that would end very well.” Jane teased. Over the course of the last hours she had leaned her weight onto the back wall, the thickest out of all of them. Her elbows and arms were sore and creaky from holding her hands up for so long, but she decided to prop her elbows up on her knees instead of putting Spider-man down. She really liked having him up close, watching him do his animated little dances when a particular favorite song of his came on. It made her feel warm in a way she hadn’t felt in the past few weeks. She felt… comfortable around the funny, nerdy, kind-hearted man. And if his extremely relaxed pose and casual chitchat was any indicator, he was feeling pretty comfortable too.

“The good news is there’s plenty more where that came from.” Spider-man sighed, holding his phone in front of his face. “And the bad news is that this thing’s about to die. Four percent battery.” He struggled to put it back in his narrow pocket; he  _ really  _ needed to start carrying a backpack around more often.

“And I’m guessing you’re not hiding a charger somewhere on you.” Jane replied sadly.

“Nope, I’m afraid not.”

She nodded understandingly, glancing out of the tiny windows at the top of the hangar. The light was already turning a distinct shade of orange-pink, the tell-tale sign of a sunset in full swing. She remembered that the last time they talked, Spider-man had told her he worked from sundown to near sun-up. The good samaritan thing to do right now would be to remind him he had a city to protect and an image to upkeep; but the devil on her shoulder wanted so  _ desperately  _ to come up with an excuse for him to stay longer, even if it was just a few minutes. She wanted to keep feeling that warm weight sitting across her palms, and wanted to keep talking about anything and everything. Their conversations always seemed to help generate little sparks of memory for her; nothing important, but enough that she really felt alive again.

But her good intentions won out. “It’s starting to get late.” She said hesitantly.

Spider-man stood, stretched and shook his legs to get some blood back into them. “Yeah. I guess it is.” His fingers fidgeted at his sides, but he made no move to swing away as he was so often inclined to do. It was stupid, a stupid thought, but… he didn’t want to go quite yet. He didn’t get soft, comfortable stretches of time like this anymore; and Jane was like one big, soft moment. He wanted more of them, and wanted more time taking in Jane’s wide-eyed fascination with all his adventures and interests. He wanted to make her laugh more: when she did, her smile was bright and she seemed to glow like the sun. 

“Well, I’d better get going.” He said aloud, more to convince himself than anything. 

Jane blinked rapidly like she had been startled out of a deep thought. She lowered her hands carefully, her fingers already buzzing with pins and needles. When she gently set Spider-man down on the ground, withdrawing herself, he caught a knuckle of her pointer finger in his hand. She stopped moving backwards and looked down at him with confusion. 

Peter wrestled with words for a moment. “I had fun today.” He finally settled on. “It’s, uh… it’s nice just hanging out.”

That beautiful smile that Peter was starting to like so bloomed across Jane’s face. “I did too. Us outsiders gotta stick together, right? And, for the record…” She used her thumb to gently rub the hand that Spider-man had on her finger, “Your taste in music isn’t that bad. You should drop by again, sometime. And bring a charger.”

Peter’s chest got warm at the prospect of just  _ relaxing  _ here again; nothing to do, no pressure, nobody to save. But then his poor dying phone began to ring in his pocket, and he whipped it out to see Tony’s icon waiting impatiently in the middle of his screen. “Shhhhit. I totally forgot to call Stark and ask him how the press conference went.” He looked back up at Jane. “I’ve really gotta go answer this before he sends a suit flying through my apartment window looking for me.”

They crossed the hangar, Jane lifting the door just high enough for Peter to jog out into the sunset-colored evening, phone already up to his ear. As he rapidly hurried away, she got down on one knee and put her mouth to the door opening. “Go get ‘em, short stuff!”

“Will do, tall stuff!” Spidey’s voice echoed back faintly from across the runway. 

“Tall stuff,” Jane scoffed to herself, dropping the door. “What a stupid nickname.”

She loved it.


End file.
